43 Facts About Walter LaFeber

Walter Fredrick LaFeber was an American academic who served as the Andrew H and James S Tisch Distinguished University Professor in the Department of History at Cornell University.

Walter LaFeber was known for providing widely read revisionist histories of the Cold War with views like William Appleman Williams but more subtle; the label "moderate revisionist" has been applied to him.

Walter LaFeber's teaching abilities led to his longstanding undergraduate "History of American Foreign Relations" class at Cornell gaining a reputation as one of the university's best and most popular courses.

In 2006 Walter LaFeber gave a farewell lecture before nearly 3,000 colleagues and former students at the Beacon Theatre in New York City.

Walter LaFeber was born in Walkerton, Indiana, a town of around 2,000 people in the northern part of the state, outside South Bend, on August 30,1933.

Walter LaFeber's father, Ralph Nichols LaFeber, owned a local grocery store; his mother, Helen, was a housewife.

Walter LaFeber worked at his father's store from age eight through the end of college.

Walter LaFeber became a lifelong fan of the Chicago Cubs.

At Walkerton High School, the 6-foot-2-inch Walter LaFeber was a star basketball player.

Walter LaFeber attended Hanover College, a small Presbyterian liberal arts college in the southern part of Indiana.

Walter LaFeber played varsity basketball for the Hanover Panthers, as a reserve forward during his sophomore year.

Walter LaFeber sang in the Hanover College Choir, which provided voices for Sunday morning Presbyterian services and gave concerts around the state, was co-chair of a "Religion in Life" Week program at the college, and was on the Hanover Board of Student Affairs, which directed extracurricular affairs on campus.

Walter LaFeber belonged to the Beta Theta Pi social fraternity, the Alpha Phi Gamma national honor society for journalism, and Hanover's own Gamma Sigma Pi honor society for academic performance.

Walter LaFeber then went to Stanford University, gaining an MA in 1956.

Contrary to some later accounts, Walter LaFeber has said he got along well with Bailey.

At the time LaFeber was not dissatisfied with US foreign policy, having supported the presidential candidacies of Robert A Taft in 1952 and Dwight D Eisenhower in 1956.

At this point Walter LaFeber went to the University of Wisconsin.

Unger found it particularly notable that Walter LaFeber did not vilify the people he identified as being behind much of American foreign policy.

In particular he charged Walter LaFeber with overusing the papers of Bernard Baruch, whom Ferrell said lacked real influence in determining American foreign policy.

Walter LaFeber then shifted focus and returned to his youthful interest in basketball, examining the effect of modern sports and communication empires in his book, Michael Jordan and the New Global Capitalism, which analyzes the rise in popularity of basketball, Michael Jordan, Nike, and cable satellite networks and their relation to, and metaphor for, globalization.

Walter LaFeber became the first recipient of the Clark Distinguished Teaching Award at Cornell in 1966; the award was created to honor junior faculty members who were involved in the teaching of undergraduates.

Walter LaFeber attained the rank of full professor in 1967, then was named to the Marie Underhill Noll Professor of History chair in 1968.

Walter LaFeber's lectures were considered "events"; classes met Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Saturdays, with the last of these being in front of even more people than the weekday ones, because students brought their friends to listen.

Walter LaFeber, who was known for being "old school" in his appearance and demeanor, always wearing a coat and tie to class, was lauded by Cornell's in-house newspaper for his simplistic approach to presentation, with a style that has been characterized as "anti-razzle-dazzle".

Walter LaFeber began classes by writing an outline of only a few points on the chalkboard and then talking without notes.

Walter LaFeber spoke softly for whatever room he was in, so as to force students to be absolutely quiet in order to hear him.

In May 1976, during the year of the United States Bicentennial, Cornell University broke with an over-100-year-old tradition: Instead of the university president or another administrator delivering the commencement address, Walter LaFeber became the first faculty member to give it.

Walter LaFeber switched to half-time teaching in 1989, giving classes in the fall but reserving the spring for researching and writing.

Walter LaFeber began doing less than that in the 1990s, but then was offered the Andrew H and James S Tisch Distinguished University Professor post, which brought him back to teaching.

In general, Walter LaFeber was in sympathy with many of the student causes of the 1960s, including opposition to the war, the quest for racial justice, and the desire for a political system that better represented democratic ideals.

Walter LaFeber publicly announced that he would not return to Cornell if Perkins remained.

Walter LaFeber's stance was one of the more influential in leading to Perkins' resignation at the end of the semester.

In 1971, Walter LaFeber was named to the American Historical Association's seat on the Department of State Historical Advisory Committee, as part of an effort to give revisionist historians a voice during the selection and production of the important Foreign Relations of the United States book series.

Walter LaFeber became chair of that committee by 1974, and served on it until 1975.

Walter LaFeber was selected as a Guggenheim Fellow in 1989.

Walter LaFeber gave titled lectures at many universities, and made a number of appearances on radio and television.

Walter LaFeber served on several scholarly editorial boards, including that of Political Science Quarterly.

Walter LaFeber was elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Walter LaFeber served as president in 1999 of the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations.

Walter LaFeber retired in 2006 after 46 years on the Cornell faculty.

An exceptionally visible and valuable public intellectual, Professor Walter LaFeber has managed to reach broad audiences without sacrificing academic rigor.

The influence of Walter LaFeber was again a topic in 2016 at Zankel Hall in New York City, when he and several prominent students discussed the influence of Cornell on American diplomacy.

Walter LaFeber died on March 9,2021, at an assisted living facility in Ithaca, New York.